


i wear my sunglasses in space

by fourshoesfrank



Series: autism........but in SPACE [1]
Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Autism Spectrum, Autistic Julian Bashir, Gen, Lizards, M/M, Meltdown, Paranoia, REPTILES, Sensory Overload, autistic elim garak, he just showed up, i didnt mean. to put julian in here, just a bit, shutdown, tbh im not sure if this contains a meltdown or a shutdown, thats right ive done it!!!, this one was fuelled by luina's new music
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-30
Updated: 2019-07-30
Packaged: 2020-07-25 22:40:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20033518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fourshoesfrank/pseuds/fourshoesfrank
Summary: (lol shoot i forgot the summary when i first posted this.....sorry.......)Garak learns a way to cope with his sensitivity to light rather than just suffering through it. Bashir's awful fashion sense makes a cameo





	i wear my sunglasses in space

**Author's Note:**

> was perusing the internet wondering why there were so many (still not that many tho) autistic julian fics and absolutely nothing for autistic garak........then i realized it was because i hadnt written one yet obv

Federation space stations and starships have a default temperature of about 22 degrees Celsius, which is close to ideal for the majority of humanoid species. If an individual would rather be warmer or colder, they are permitted to wear heating or cooling underclothes (usually provided by Starfleet) under their uniform. The vast majority of temperature-sensitive species manage just fine with this system. They can always adjust the temperature in their quarters to their liking as well, so they don’t have to wear the somewhat restrictive underclothes when they don’t want to. This works perfectly fine for the vast majority of humanoids living and serving on starships and space stations.

  
Elim Garak is not in that vast majority, apparently. He is not a Starfleet officer, so he can’t acquire the heating underclothes as easily as, say, a Vulcan officer could. He’s also a Cardassian, and nobody who has ever spoken to a Bajoran on board Terok Nor would want to give him any clothes, let alone _special_ clothes that he doesn’t actually need.

  
He sews his own instead. Garak is a tailor now, a damn good one, and he has the skills to make his own clothes. The problem is, even the best fabrics are never warm enough.

  
Yes, various wools and tweeds are insulating, trapping the heat from Garak’s quarters next to his skin throughout the day, but they feel so itchy and painful that after the first three tries he’s given up on using those materials. No one takes him seriously when he complains about this, because it’s common knowledge that Cardassian skin isn’t as sensitive as most species’. Garak is not sure what’s wrong with his own skin, but it will not let him wear the most insulating fabrics.

  
Other fabrics, like the Trill version of cashmere, the only kind of wool that Garak will wear, are extremely expensive and don’t trap much heat. He has no doubt that if he were warm blooded, Trill cashmere would work perfectly to suit his needs. If he could generate his own body heat, the fabric would trap it next to his skin and keep him at a comfortable temperature all day.

  
Alas, Garak is cold blooded, a fact that sets him apart from virtually every other life-form on the station. Even most of the science specimens in the labs are roughly equivalent to mammals, which is obviously something that everyone knows and not something Garak learned from trespassing in the labs when they were being outfitted for exobiology research.

  
Suffice it to say, Garak is always cold and he can’t do much about it. It was never like this when Cardassians were in charge of the environmental controls. _They_ kept the heat, humidity, and lighting at perfectly acceptable levels.

  
Alright, fine, _mostly_ acceptable levels. Garak’s eyes have always been too sensitive to light, even by Cardassian standards. He’s never been allowed to do anything about it, if course, so putting his own discomfort aside is second nature by now. He’s able to do his work in spite of the pain stinging his eyes because the lights are too bright. He has to keep them around Federation regulation level, because he’s discovered that lowering the lights to his own comfort level makes people think his shop is closed. That’s just ridiculous. His hours are clearly posted on the door, in plain sight, for the entire station to see. Whether anyone can actually read the tiny print is their own problem.

  
After he found out that keeping the lights at his comfort level tends to deter customers, Garak considered adding another sign that informed people that if the schedule says he’s inside the shop, he’s definitely inside the shop, he's simply keeping the lights at a reasonable level. Of course, Garak quickly vetoed his own idea, because someone might put two and two together and figure out that he has an unusual sensitivity to bright lights, and someone might use that against him.

  
He doesn’t tell anyone, and no one finds out. There wouldn’t be any point in telling someone about this. It isn’t like the problem of the chill of the station, which is something that a few other species share. No, this problem Garak has with the lights is something he has to deal with on his own. And he is dealing with it, make no mistake. His discomfort is not affecting his work in any way, shape, or form.

  
Until it is. It’s a typical day, no different from the hundreds of others he’s spent on board this godforsaken hunk of metal. Garak should be sewing, or knitting, or doing something to further his business, but he’s shivering and his eyes hurt more than they ever have, and as a result of this, he can’t focus on anything he should be doing.

  
At first, he tries to adapt. He moves the garment he’s currently mending to a darker corner of the shop, away from the brightest lightbulb, and that helps, but only at first. His eyes still hurt even after his pupils adjust to the new light level. He’s still shivering, and he still can’t focus on his work. It’s like something is pulling his attention away from anything worth doing and making him focus on his physical discomfort. Some old line about putting the welfare of Cardassia before the welfare of any individual Cardassian keeps running through his head, but that is entirely useless because he’s not on Cardassia. He will never be on Cardassia ever again.

  
Garak can’t take it anymore. His eyes _hurt_ and they’re giving him too much information and he needs to stop this but he doesn’t know _how_...

  
How long has he been standing like this, clenching his eyes shut and twisting his torso from side to side in an effort to calm himself and warm up, in plain view of anyone who might decide to walk into his shop? How long has he been totally unaware of anything but the unbearable level of wrongness he feels in his eyeballs? Garak has no idea how much time has passed since he moved his work into the darker corner. Normally, he’s quite good at keeping track of the time.

  
This is not a normal situation. This is a very bad, almost catastrophic situation, and Garak is still in pain and his eyes are still feeling _wrong_.

  
“Computer, lights to forty-five percent,” a voice says, a voice that definitely doesn’t belong to Garak and therefore belongs to someone who shouldn’t be inside the shop, not at this hour—oh. It’s lunch time. _Shit_.

  
“Garak, are you alright?” Doctor Bashir asks with a voice that is sounding much too concerned for the present circumstances. Anyone could walk by the shop, hear the doctor’s question, and learn that Garak is compromised.

  
He should close the door, he should tell Doctor Bashir to leave, he should hack the security files later and remove all record of his weakness, and he definitely should turn the lights back up so no one starts to suspect anything is amiss. He finds that he is capable of doing exactly none of those things, because his muscles don’t seem to be obeying his mind right now.

  
“Garak, what’s going on?”

  
Oh, he’d just love to know the answer to that question. The only answer that Garak can manage is a shrug and a dismissive wave of his left hand. Doctor Bashir will take the hint and leave him alone now. Or not. The doctor is pulling out a tricorder to scan Garak and that is the last thing that should be happening to him in plain view of anyone passing by on the Promenade. Garak seizes the doctor’s wrist and shakes his head.

  
“Put that away,” he hisses, and, miraculously, the other man complies. He puts the tricorder back wherever it came from and simply stands there, staring at Garak. It’s unnerving. It’s better than scanning him for injuries or illnesses.

  
And now the doctor is speaking. “Garak, if you don’t tell me what’s wrong, you know I’m going to assume the worst,” Bashir reminds him with a small, mildly self deprecating smile. “Write it down if you can’t say it out loud, I don’t care. As Chief Medical Officer, and as your friend, I’d like to know what’s bothering you.”

  
Curse this man. Curse his Federation medicine rules that don’t allow him to refuse to treat anyone. Curse his constant meddling in things that even Garak doesn’t fully understand.

  
But he does want to understand, even if he has to listen to ten minutes of Bashir’s medical jargon to achieve that understanding, so Garak answers the question honestly. “The lights,” he says, “are much too bright. And it’s too cold. There, happy?” _Now tell me what’s wrong with me so I don’t have to turn to you for help the next time this happens,_ he adds silently. Bashir frowns as he thinks it over.

  
“Do you feel as though you’re receiving too much sensory input?”

  
Garak’s mind just _stops_. How did the doctor just encapsulate, in six little Federation Standard words, the problem that has plagued Garak for all his life? How in the name of all that is holy does such a neat little phrase even exist? How did it come to be part of a doctor’s vocabulary? Garak has always assumed that his problems are a uniquely Cardassian trait, because in order to be the wrong kind of Cardassian one must grow up surrounded by the right kind, yes?

  
“Garak, if you blank out like this one more time I will scan you,” Bashir threatens. The sound brings Garak back to the present, and back to the pain in his eyes and the cold in his limbs.

  
“Why yes, Doctor, that is exactly what I feel like,” he says softly. “How in the world could Starfleet Medical know about that?”

  
“It’s called sensory overload, Garak, and it’s more common than you might think. You said you’re having problems with the lights and the temperature?”

  
“Yes,” Garak says quietly in response. Talking to the doctor isn’t helping matters, either. Why doesn’t he just hurry up and explain how to overcome this ‘sensory overload’ so they can get on with their usual lunch?

  
Bashir nods thoughtfully. “Would you be averse to the idea of wearing sunglasses inside?” he asks.

  
“What are sunglasses?”

Six minutes and one visit to a replicator later, Garak and Bashir walk into the Replimat to enjoy their usual lunchtime discussion. The doctor looks like business as usual, dressed in his Starfleet uniform. The tailor also looks like business as usual, but only from the neck down.

Perched on Garak’s nose is a pair of neon orange sunglasses with _glitter_, of all things, on the frames, with lenses so dark they reflect the lights in the ceiling. He isn’t thrilled with the design of the eyewear, but since the alternative is that pesky sensory overload, he’ll deal with the sunglasses for now.

As Garak sits down, he pushes the part of the glasses that sits on the bridge of his nose up and frowns. They seem to slip down rather easily.

“Is this really the only pair that you know how to replicate?” he asks the doctor as soon as the human has sat down with his own food. Bashir laughs. 

“No, but they are the least likely to offend your fashion sense.”

**Author's Note:**

> please comment/kudos and right after that google ‘lizard in cool sunglasses’ and hit images i promise you’ll be taken on a journey


End file.
